Waiting For Forever
by Millennialice
Summary: She hated waiting. Whatever gods he had been doing favors for all night, he had better hope they would protect him now.


AN: All right, first thing: this a response to Kioko's great story, Better Late Than Never, if you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it as it is much better than this, in my opinion. I'm not sure about etiquette in posting a response…fanfiction of fanfiction if you will, but, Kioko, if you have any problems at all with this being posted, say the word and it's gone.

Second thing: This is Annabeth's POV of some events of the aforementioned story. This started as a stubborn plot bunny, and morphed into a rambling odyssey through Annabeth's head, which I learned is a really great place to be. This is a first posted fic, so my apologies for formatting errors, I will be smoothing those out in hopefully a short time.

And as things tend to come in threes, last thing: Disclaimer: I do not have any official authority over anything relating to Percy Jackson. Hope that works.

* * *

Percy Jackson was dead.

She had told him when they were meeting. She had told him not to be late. She outlined for him the painful things she would do to him if he was even one minute late.

And he was late. _Two hours _late. Two hours and three minutes late, and she was sitting alone in a restaurant she didn't like, wedged uncomfortably between the two sickeningly happy couples her friends had become, and a boy she was trying hard not to get too close to. (Did Reilly really think his arms needed to be that far away from his body?) Chin on her hand, she swirled patterns in the blueberry topping of the half a slice of cheesecake that still sat on the plate in front of her. She hated waiting.

She was _not_ worried, she was angry. Her boyfriend's body was invulnerable, and his head was thick enough to withstand the worst of harms. She was sure he would survive whatever mess he had gotten himself into. He had a cell phone, which he hated to use, but he would have called her for backup if it was something serious.

He couldn't claim to have gotten lost. Percy may have had a lousy sense of direction on land, but he did know New York, and they had been to this restaurant before. (He had been late then too. The Party Ponies decided make a root beer run, and _she_ was left explaining to a hungry dinner party who'd lost their reservation why she was so late - and why her boyfriend would be even later)

He was probably trailing behind them, thinking they were all running as late as him, thinking they were still taking pictures. That was it – the brave champion of Olympus hated having his picture taken, perhaps due to the number of times his photo had appeared under a Wanted: headline. He was probably knocking on Joyce's door now. (Her parents would be thrilled with a strange boy knocking on _their_ door and looking for _her_). Well, whatever his problem was, he was going to have to deal with it without her help. He was going to have a few more problems the next time she saw him.

There were many experiences Annabeth had had in her lifetime she was grateful for and she knew no mortal would ever experience. But while she would never (ever) want to be simply mortal, she did feel the pull of missed 'normal' experiences. (Ignorance of _anything _should never be present in a daughter of Athena.) Many other parts of her life had long ago lost any mortal semblance. Her childhood had been full of living nightmares before she was secured away in the safety of her camp. While she could now say she loved her family, she had long ago accepted that their relationship was not _normal, _with her living on the other side of the country so that she could work_ -_for gods.

After years spent at Camp Half Blood, wanting only to get out into the world, she finally had her chance for a life that approached normal, and her life now was _still_ often interrupted like any other half-blood's, by whatever monster felt brave/stupid and decided to pick a fight that day, and so all her hopes for one (just one) normal, mortal experience laid with – of all things – the prom. And now that the prom had come, she was about ready to track down Thalia and swear her allegiance to the Hunt, and boys - particularly kelp headed half-blood boys – could be damned forever. Not the way she had expected to feel tonight. It was all Percy's fault.

"Annabeth?" her mortal friends were looking at her. (She had mortal friends now, who would have thought?) Her mortal friends were looking at her with _pity_. Stupid Son of Poseidon. "We're ready to leave now, all right?"

She looked at the ornate clock that sat in the center of the restaurant (Two hours and five minutes late) and nodded. She waited for the others to vacate the booth, ignored Reilly's hand brushing her arm as he shifted to leave, before beginning to slide out the other way. At the end of the booth, she paused, went back and ate the rest of the cheesecake in three bites. With or without him, she _was _going to her prom. She _was _going to have a good time. (She _was_ angry.)

Reilly raised his eyebrows at her as exited the booth. "The dessert must be good," he said. He focused on her lips, "And blue?"

She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand while Joyce rolled her eyes and said, "_The boyfriend _likes blue; he's all weird about it, you don't want to know" and Annabeth's good mood was gone again.

Her dress was blue, and _no_ she had not chosen it just to please her Seaweed Brain of a boyfriend. She had searched for this dress with the same ardor she usually used to pursue whatever important, and beloved, and forgotten, and lost object of the gods. (Annabeth and Percy's Find It Service, Grover had once said: Helping immortals find things they had almost forgot they had - she prayed one of the young godlings never lost his retainer, because guess who would be sifting through Mount Olympus' illustrious trash?)

_She_ loved this dress. She could appreciate the superior texture of material, how the threads were woven together to feel smooth against her skin. She loved the beadwork that embellished the dress, the white and silver reminding her of the night sky. And it _had _been blue, so she had known Percy would like it and that had tipped things completely in the dress' favor. The silver in her hair served a double purpose of complementing the beads of her dress as well as drawing notice from the grey streaks in her hair. She was never (ever) ashamed of this memento of Mt. Tam, (she could count on one hand the number of humans who had held up the sky, after all) but tonight was not about that part of her genetic make-up, and her appearance was one more way of emphasizing that. Not that Percy was here to see it anyway.

She was the only one who missed him. Her friends had quickly grown tired of the excuses (the many, _many_ excuses) she had to make for Percy (increasingly lame excuses too, – somehow, "he's had problems with Time" always hit too close to the truth) and long ago started encouraging her to "lose the loser." Not long after, Reilly started being invited along when they all went out.

He fell in beside her now as they left. (Two hours and eight minutes late, she was _so_ _angry_.) He was saying something about the rest of the night, but she wasn't paying attention. Her dress had given her an idea for the floor of a temple of Artemis, which she would _not_ need to consult a certain Son of Poseidon about finding the pearls she would need. Plenty of minor water gods would be more than happy to help. (There were great perks to being the Architect of Olympus.)

Reilly had her turned from the street now, trying to get her attention. She watched his hand come up and run through his blond hair, his watch glinting in the street light as a car pulled up behind their limo. (Two hours and ten minutes late, and counting.) He had asked her a question, but she was saved from answering by the sound of a voice calling out her name, which caused her to tense.

Of course he would have the nerve to be perfectly fine. Walking and talking and not at all thrown against a tree that had a knot _just _positioned to hit that spot on his back which only she knew about. Not locked in an airtight cell in the Underworld. Not unconscious at the bottom of the ocean. Not turned into a rodent. Not blown up in a volcanic explosion. She felt her anger increase. Well, he was about to find a fate worse than death right there. Whatever gods he had been doing favors for all night, he had better hope they would protect him now.

"Finally showed up, did you?" Rielly had decided he would answer for her. (Celestial bronze _will not_ harm mortals.) His nose wrinkled. "God, Jackson when _don't _you look like you got in fight with a garbage truck and lost?"

Annabeth turned and saw Percy Jackson standing on a street corner by a taxi. She had seen him look worse, but not often. (So it _was _dodging monsters and not dodging cameras.) His pants was muddy from the knee down, his right sleeve had the parallel rips of claw marks, and his left shoulder of his black jacket was turning a putrid shade of reddish brown, likely from the vivid green slime that still streaked the material. The white shirt underneath was missing buttons and had singe marks and the frayed end of what was left of his unknotted tie stubbornly clung to his collar.

He had no injuries, of course, and there was no blood either. Remnants of the green slime were still on his neck, but were not causing the damage Annabeth knew it would have on anyone else. The hair on the left side of his head was matted, and parts of it stuck nearly straight up. Although he was dry, the salt on his hair and clothes told her he had been swimming in the sea recently. He had an annoyed look on his face as he answered, "Shove it Reilly, I need to talk to Annabeth." (Oh now he wanted to talk.)

Reilly had answered for her _again_ and thrown in another jab at Percy for good measure. Not that he didn't deserve it, but if anyone was going to be throwing jabs at her very late, trouble-making, inconsiderate boyfriend, it would be her.

"Just give me two minutes," she said, and grabbed Percy and headed back to the restaurant. (After two _hours_, two minutes was more than he deserved.) She had a feeling this was not going to be a conversation she wanted her eagerly listening mortal friends to hear. When she estimated they were out of listening range she let him go and asked "Well?"

But Percy didn't launch into the long (she's sure) story about threats only he could deal with and only on tonight (did it have to be _tonight_?) that would validate (not possible) the fact he was (obviously) not going with her to the prom. Instead he looked at her like she had punched him in the gut. (She _was_ going to punch him in a minute.) When he did finally open his mouth, what came out was, "You look fantastic, Annabeth." (Gods how did he know the exact _wrong_ thing to say?)

She did remember to thank him before she started yelling at him about how she had been waiting and calling him. (_She_ had managed to deal with _her_ monsters today before lunch, why couldn't he?) She had just asked him for his explanation when a group of emergency vehicles roared past in a blare of klaxons and flashing lights. She knew the answer, but said anyway, "Please tell me that had nothing to do with you."

He sighed, which was enough of an answer itself. So the situation was _still_ ongoing. He had, what, called a time-out to come talk to her? She was going to ask, but he dropped a name that she jumped on instead.

"Nico? You were late because you were hanging out with _Nico_?" She loved Nico, really she did, but the kid was a son of the Big Three, and therefore attracted disaster. He and Percy together was a guarantee of trouble, whether they got caught up in it or caused it themselves. It was a common enough occurrence (nearly every other week) that she was tempted to instill a Percy-and-Nico-Can't-Go-Off-Together-Without-Supervision/Backup/Common Sense/ Battle Strategist Rule and extend to include Thalia on her visits.

Percy went off then, defending himself with zombie hordes, and she knew that he couldn't have all the blame. It was part of his nature, both as a powerful demigod, and just as a guy who had to try to fix things. Percy simply _couldn't _have left New York to deal with unleashed dead and whatever else threatened it tonight. The fact didn't make it easier to forgive; it just made her impossibly sad. Because she could see the future they had in front of them, as surely as if the Fates had presented it to her themselves, right there on the sidewalk.

"I just wanted to be a normal teenager for one night," she said. "One night, and you couldn't even give me that."

Percy responded with how he couldn't be normal, but she already knew. She knew that _this_ was how it would always be. Dates, birthdays, and anniversaries missed. Trips always put off until they were eventually forgotten, or turned into surprise quests, plans always broken. Always late. Always waiting. Because Percy would always have his demons to battle. And so would she.

She hated waiting.

So she made a decision. "That's why I'm going with a _real_ normal guy instead."

Percy looked stunned and managed to sputter, "You're going with _him_? But he's – he's _Reilly_!"

She really didn't care anymore, she just wanted to go and have the night she had been planning. So she found herself _defending_ Reilly (ugh) – insulting Percy a few more times while she was at it -before letting loose a tirade of the past few hours of how she had been waiting, angry, embarrassed, angry, miserable, and don't forget (never worried) angry. Her eyes stung by the end, and he was looking pretty miserable when they heard Joyce's voice from the limo. "Annabeth, if you could finish breaking up with Percy sometime this year, we'd all appreciate it!"

So someone finally said it. Percy looked back at her with a face she had first seen on him on a barge crossing the Styx – shocked and slightly panicked. He asked, "Is that what we're doing? Breaking up?" She couldn't look at him then because, what did he think they were doing?

She heard him say "Fine. Fine, if that's what you want." He began to walk away and Annabeth watched his once nice black shoes leave marks of mud on the sidewalk. (Thalia had talked about heading south last time she had seen her, how hard would it be to track the Hunters down?)

She wanted to say something, "Percy – ," but he didn't want to hear it. "Look, I gotta go, all right? There's something tentacled scaling the Statue of Liberty, and I left Nico alone with the rest of the sea monsters in the harbor and he's probably been eaten by now," his last words seemed designed especially to make her feel guilty, "Have fun at the prom."

He walked back to the taxi, the gray mark in his hair suddenly prominent under the streetlight (gods, how could someone so young seem so old just then?) and they both ignored the shouts from the limo. He was going back to finish a fight against giant squids, and eels and who knew what else, so that tomorrow they could fight off a different, larger invasion, and _if_ they were lucky (they were never lucky) they would never see those _particular_ monsters again. It would never change, and she wasn't stupid enough to think it ever would. (She had waited _so _long.)

Annabeth began to walk to the curb. The limo door opened for her as she drew near and she heard the sound of the cab behind it as it began to move. She stepped onto the street behind the limo and stepped out (remember to leave space for the driver's reaction time as well as the acceleration of the car) in front of the cab.

The driver hit his brakes and his eyes narrowed as she circled to the side door and climbed in the back. (No reason for him to be annoyed, he hadn't even come _close_ to hitting her.)

Percy straightened from his position slumped against the car door and stared at her like he'd never really seen her before as she assured the cabbie that everyone was now in the car. "Uh…you got in the wrong car, Wise Girl," and she stopped the six different retorts that come to the tip of her tounge. (Because, really? He thinks she stepped _around_ the limo, jumped in front of, and got into _his_ car by accident? )

"Do you honestly think I'd break up with you because of prom?" she said, as if she hadn't thought it herself a few moments ago. "Oh, I'm mad at you, no doubt about that, and I expect you to do some serious groveling for _months_ after this, but break up with you? Seriously, Percy."

She had waited so long to go out, so long to experience the world, - years of waiting that really came down to just waiting for him to arrive, so that things could start happening, forget about being normal. "What about prom?" she heard Percy ask as she pulled her knife from under her dress.

Without regret she began to hack and rip at the skirt of her dress to make it battle ready, and took notice of the way the beads looked as they spilled against the cab's dark floor (because really, that temple was going to look amazing, if she said so herself) as she replied, "Why would I want to go to the stupid prom when I could be slaying tentacle monsters with you?"

An awed look crossed Percy's face before he leaned over a gave her one _hell_ of a kiss. (What had she been thinking about?) She didn't hear everything he said as he pulled away, but she did catch the words _I owe you_.

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied, holding on to the floating feeling he had given her. It must have shown on her face, because he looked much more confident now, and even had the nerve to give her a smirk. She shot him a look and glanced out the window as the driver made a turn towards Battery Park. "But don't think that just because you kissed me that I'm going to forget that I'm mad at you."

He had better believe he owed her, he owed her big time for this, but she wasn't all that worried about it. Percy may _always_ be late but he always came through, which was why she was with him now. And because she had waited a long time for him, and because she was not about to just let him go into a fight without her at his back.

And because if the Seaweed Brain went alone up, without a strategy, against a giant tentacled monster there was going to be serious damage to the Statue of Liberty.

"Now, you said sea monsters were attacking my mother's statue?"

* * *

Asking for reviews makes me a hypocrite, so I won't…but the button _is_ right there…


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